Entanglement by Zygmunt Miloszewski Page B

already looking at me like I’m round the twist, but I’ll finish anyway. I didn’t so much pretend to be Bartek as really become him. Please don’t ask me how that can be.”
    Szacki thought that if an expert had to examine them all, the State Treasury would spend a fortune.
    “Earlier you were the main subject of the constellation,” he said.
    “Right, but I didn’t take it quite so badly. OK, it was a very tough experience, when I saw why my marriage had fallen apart, but those were my own emotions. Do you see? Even if they were hidden somewhere deep down, even if they were forced out of me, they were mine, my own. But later, with Bartek and Henryk… dreadful, as if I’d had my identity bulldozed. I want to forget about it as quickly as possible.”
    “Is it long since you divorced?”
    “No, not long, a year ago. And not so much divorced, as separated. We didn’t go to court. But now perhaps we’ll manage to botch it all up again.”
    “Sorry?”

    “Sorry what?”
    “You said ‘botch it all up again’.”
    “Oh, of course I meant patch it all up. Please ignore my slips of the tongue. I’ve got a connection missing in my brain, and all my life I’ve mixed up idioms and compound phrases. No one can explain why.”
    What a nutter, thought Szacki - he makes a good impression, but he’s a nutter.
    “Of course, I understand. During the therapy, when you were playing the role of Henryk’s son, did you feel hatred towards your - let’s call him - father?”
    “I’m sorry, but what are you driving at?”
    “Please answer the question.”
    Kaim was silent, turning his mobile phone in his hands. It must have been very expensive - the display screen alone was bigger than Szacki’s entire phone.
    “Yes, I did feel hatred towards him. In the first instant I wanted to deny it, but that would have been pointless. I’m sure you’ll watch the recording, and you’ll see that.”
    Szacki made a note: “therapy - video?”
    “What are you going to ask me now? Did I want to kill him? Did I kill him?”
    “Did you kill him?”
    “No.”
    “Did you want to?”
    “No. Really I didn’t.”
    “So what do you think, who did kill him?”
    “How should I know? In the papers they said it was a thief.”
    “But if it was one of you?” Szacki dug a bit deeper.
    “Hanna,” replied Kaim without hesitation.
    “Why?”
    “Simple. She was his daughter who committed suicide at the age of fifteen. I’m dread sure it’s because her father abused her
as a child. That wasn’t obvious at the therapy, but they’re always writing about it in the papers. Hanna sensed that, something shifted gear in her head, and she killed him.”
     
    Once Kaim had left, Szacki opened the window wide and sat on the sill to smoke his second cigarette. It was coming up to four, and there was already a line of cars on Krucza Street, heading towards the Avenue. Still high in the sky, the sun had finally pushed its way through the clouds and was warming the damp pavements; there was a smell of wet dust in the air. Perfect weather to go for a walk with a girl, thought Szacki. Sit down by the fountain in the Saxon Garden, lay your head on her knees and tell her about the books you read as a child. He couldn’t remember the last time he and Weronika had simply gone for a walk like that. He couldn’t remember when he’d ever told anyone about the books he read as a child. Worse than that, he couldn’t remember when he’d last read anything that wasn’t entitled “Prosecution Reference File”. More and more often he felt empty and burned out. Was it just his age?
    Perhaps I should call a therapist? he thought, and laughed out loud.
    Of course he should. He sat down at his desk and dialled Rudzki’s number. For a long time no one answered. He was just about to give up when he heard a click.
    “Yes,” said a voice that sounded as if it were coming all the way from Kamchatka.
    Szacki introduced himself and told Rudzki he must come